


In Potential

by Tammany



Series: In Potential [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Chaste, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 20:10:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5883958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As so often, this is another "how might it happen?" This does not take us far. It's a turning point, in which potential of several types are revealed.</p><p>Small, but I'm rather pleased with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Potential

 

It wasn’t easy. For years he’d juggled his position as DI—later DCI—at the MET against his covert work with MI 5&6, and with Sherlock’s brother Mycroft. He’d seen his marriage fall apart. He’d seen his peers reach a point—and retire, often early, often to happier, better-paid positions, enjoying the double-bounty of an MET pension and an ongoing salary. His superiors had started questioning his long-term plans the same week he turned fifty, and age that so often marked the turning point for his colleagues.

“The joints start to go,” Gregson said, on announcing his own retirement. “And my arches. And if I never see an MET evidence tracking form again in my life, well….”

Word came back that Gregson eventually accepted a role as security consultant for a Scottish Highland clan chief, and married a ginger-haired town librarian.

“What are you thinking about, sir?” Donovan asked one evening, as she drove them back to the new offices.

“They’re after me to make up my mind—in or out. Retire or stick it with the MET. If I stick it, they want me to move up a level. Or more.” He sighed. “I hate to quote Sherlock, but…Boooooooring.”

Donovan snorted. “You could stick right where you are. Plenty don’t move up.”

Lestrade made a face, thinking glumly how hopeless that sounded. Fifteen or so more years actively avoiding promotion. Fifteen years with his knees getting stiffer, his feet flatter…and youngsters like Donovan bottlenecked behind him, waiting for their brief shots at glory.

“You could retire and come back as a consultant,” Donovan said, trying to sound optimistic. “There for the interesting stuff, spared the drudgery.”

Lestrade liked the drudgery. It was like a little vacation punctuating the high thrills of working with Sherlock…

“Sherlock’s doing less and less with us,” Donovan said, as though she’d read Lestrade’s mind. “More and more private commissions.”

More and more tasks handed to him by MI5 and MI6, too. Lestrade knew, even if Donovan didn’t. For those covert assignments they didn’t need Lestrade to function as contact and handler…though Mycroft was wise enough to avoid being Sherlock’s immediate superior.

He sighed, and let Sal drop him off by his own car.

He took himself out for dinner as his favorite pub. Had a pint of the house brew—a decent IPA. He got up and walked back to the car; then, a bit to his own surprise, he drove over to the Diogenes. They recognized him there, after all the years he’d worked with Mycroft.  They ushered him into the Stranger’s Room, then ducked off to find Holmes, who came in soon enough, carrying a decanter of something and a pair of Old Fashioned glasses.

“Problems, Inspector?”

Lestrade frowned. “Not exactly. They’ve begun the push to either move me up or out over at th’ Met. Not sure what I want to do when I ‘grow up.’” He frowned and looked at the clumsy, worn toes of his street shoes: comfortable, but ugly shoes. Shoes he would no longer need soon, one way or another, he suspected. He looked up at Mycroft. “You’re not going to need me much longer either, are you?”

Holmes had a fascinating face. He could be cold and reptilian, but if you caught him off guard his face had a certain sweetness and innocence. This was apparently one of those times—guilt and surprise and compassion all flared for one blinding second, before Holmes shoved them away behind his usual bland façade. “My department will always have a use for men of talent and dedication,” he said, warily, pouring them each out a glass. He handed one to Lestrade before settling into a luxurious leather club chair with his own. “Granted,” he continued, “not always the same use they started out providing. But I find it hard to imagine you want to go back to shepherding Sherlock through withdrawal and bribing him with cold cases.”

Lestrade grimaced. “No. But…” He looked deep into the gold of the scotch he’d been served. “I don’t see anything I want up ahead, either.  If I let them promote me, it’s all politics and paper work from there on in. If I retire?” He shrugged. “Donovan says I can come back as a consultant or a subject matter expert. But I don’t see it, myself.”

Mycroft sipped his own scotch. Even without looking up, Lestrade could feel those pale eyes examining him.

“You realize you are an expert?” he asked, softly.

“If ‘expert’ means I’ve served twenty-years with my eyes open.”

“False modesty is a dreadful waste of my time, Inspector.”

“All right. I’m good at what I do. Why not keep me doing it?”

“Is that how you want to spend the rest of your life? It can be arranged.”

No doubt it could, Lestrade thought. Mycroft would pull a thread here, jam down a big red button there, talk to someone who knew someone, drift a nasty little unspoken threat past someone else—and voila, DCI Lestrade would eventually be approved to become the oldest living active DCI in MET history, entombed in his calling, if he so desired. He could see himself now. He’d drop dead at eighty as he grabbed his overcoat to go to one more murder site…

“No,” he said, softly. “No. I’ll spare you the trouble.”

He heard a sigh that sounded like relief from the other chair. “Very well. If you’re sure.”

“Yeah. I’m sure. One thing to decide I want to stick where I am a few more years. Another to be stubborn enough to stick with it till I drop in harness. Be a real berk for trying…”

A small, refined chuckle that seemed to suggest that “berk” was already a title he’d earned long since. He risked a grin of his own, looking up. “Sorry to waste your time, Holmes. It just hit me wrong today.”

Holmes nodded, graciously. “I am told that it is a matter of process. One must think through the options.” He sipped his scotch again, then said warily, “You do know you’re a good teacher?”

Lestrade blinked. “Wha’?”

“You’re a good teacher. It’s why you’ve worked so well with Sherlock. It’s what makes you so good with your poor, Sherlock-haunted team at the MET. I am told there are openings for experienced police, both at Hendon and at any number of the red brick and plate glass unis. Kings would have you signed and tenured before you could blink, if you gave them the chance.”

“Maybe if you meddled,” Lestrade scoffed. “Be real. I’ve got the degrees, but I was never an academic.”

Pale eyes blinked. Mycroft’s face was still. He didn’t speak.

Lestrade sighed. “Yeah. All right. I do know how the game is played.” Another wait for response, and he threw in, “All right. All right. Yeah, I suppose I could get a spot teaching.”

“There are young lives you could save by passing on your knowledge. And cases that would be solved by skilled young officers that would not be solved if you chose not to pass on your skills.”

Lestrade looked up, surprised. “You think I should.”

“I think…” Mycroft looked away, uneasy, then said, “I think it would suit you in many ways. And provide an answer you could come to enjoy.”

He could enjoy it. He could imagine it. There were so many ways he could go with it, too—stay in London and work with one of the many colleges in the city, or with Hendon.  Or if he wanted he could look outside London—another city. Or outside the city entirely…a country place. He hadn’t been in the country regularly for years. Maybe a place near the sea, like his grandparents had kept? He could get called in by the MET, or MI5 & 6 when something came up where they could use a second opinion, and spend the rest of his time teaching and learning… Young people around him. Bright minds. Not getting called out to a site a midnight in spitting rain…

“Yeah,” he said, gratitude for Mycroft’s idea mixing with enchanted delight at the new direction he could travel in. “Yeah. Bloody right I could enjoy it…”

Both men sipped silently, then, Lestrade so lost in the new vision of a future career he never noticed the younger man studying him. At last he finished the scotch, considered the empty glass, and rose, putting the glass on a nearby table. “Well, then. Guess it’s time to go home and start researching what I’d have to do to get one of those college spots.”

Mycroft stood, too. “If you’d like, I’ve done similar research of my own.”

Lestrade blinked. “Oh, come on, now, Holmes. You’re here till the final trumpet sounds. ‘Genius’ doesn’t come with a mandatory retirement age.”

“It ought to,” Mycroft said. “Not that I expect to use the information for some years to come. But it is better all around if I leave while I’m still at the top of my game. I can serve as a safety net while those younger than I find their own balance. Much better to be available for emergencies than for my death to provide an emergency in its own right. Not to mention the internecine battles for dominance…” He gave a priggish shiver, face crinkled in distaste. “No. Better to treat my career like the combat it is, and to respect the Powell Doctrine and ensure a sane exit strategy.” He collected Lestrade’s overcoat from the nearby coat rack, and shook it out with delicate precision, holding it for Lestrade for all the world like some tall, graceful valet.

Lestrade refused to be thrown. He nodded politely, and eased himself into the sleeves, allowing Mycroft to then set the shoulders, before coming around and…hesitating.

Their eyes met.

“You had this all worked out already, didn’t you?” Lestrade felt an odd sense of fear and delight, both elbowing each other for primacy.

Mycroft’s eyes flicked away, then back, expression rueful. “I do tend to consider exit strategies,” he said, apologetically. “So much easier all around.”

“Avoiding the day you’d have to sack me?”

“Avoiding…” The wide mouth closed, and the other man’s face went still. In his coolest voice he said, “I’ll email you my files on how to accomplish the shift into academia. I’ve got a few suggestions of institutions you might enjoy, but at least a few years at Hendon would seem to be a good start.”

Lestrade had no idea what had just transpired inside the occult brain—but something had. He sighed. Holmeses. What had he ever done to deserve Holmeses? He must have either been very, very evil or very, very good in a previous life. He managed a grin, and settled the lapels of his overcoat. “Yeah. Sounds about right. A few years teaching to build up skills and a resume. Take a few courses while I’m at it to justify myself as a trained teacher of some sort. Maybe move on from there.”

“Exactly.” Holmes eased back a few inches, and nodded, body and gesture both suggesting that he was longing to demonstrate his current exit strategy.

Lestrade didn’t want to keep him standing. “Ta, then,” he said, grinning, and started for the door—before turning and frowning back. “I owe you one. Thanks for….planning for me.”

“Each to his own abilities, Inspector. I’m happy to…” he trailed off. “IN any case, I’m glad my thinking has proved acceptable.”

“Brill,” Lestrade assured him with an instant, sincere smile. “Fucking wicked. Couldn’t have done better if you’d tried.” He turned and sauntered toward the door, feeling younger and lighter than when he’d arrived.

“I did.”

He stopped and looked back. Holmes stood, frozen, poised, eyes…melancholy and wistful. “Wha’?”

“I did. Try.”

Lestrade snorted, thrown off his stride entirely. “What the hell am I supposed to make of that?”

Mycroft shrugged, and gave a wry, self-amused little grin. “I have no idea, Inspector. Only that…if you’d gone on as you were, at some point I would have to lose you. I found myself…opposed. This way, you see, there is room left for us to continue on, experts in shared fields. Companions.”

Lestrade blinked at him, owlish. Then, cautiously, he said, “I think that’s usually called ‘friends,’ Holmes.”

Mycroft looked small and young and insecure as a new detective constable fresh from walking a beat. “If you wish, I suppose I could accept the terminology.”

“Holmes, do you have to be a complete prat? Friends. It’s friends. And, yeah, sure—I’d like that.” He frowned, trying to understand what he was watching…what Holmes was hiding—yet trying to reveal at the same time. He smiled…hesitant, bewildered. “Friends is fine.”

Holmes nodded, but other than that didn’t move. He was like a stag in the headlights—stunned into poised stillness.

Feral.

Shy.

Terrified.

What the fuck? Lestrade stepped back, hesitating, frowning. “Holmes?”

The other man snapped out of his trance with the same panicked energy of the stag—released from his pose and bounding off the roadway. “Yes. Of course. Friends. By all means.” He gathered up the bottle of scotch and the two now-empty glasses, and ducked slightly as he headed toward the door himself, veering to avoid coming too close to Lestrade…who, copper to the core, shifted along with him, blocking his exit.

They stared.

“You’re spooked,” Lestrade said, amazed and charmed.

“Not,” Holmes said with a sniff. “Now if you will, Inspector.”

“Greg. If we’re friends, it’s Greg.” He watched Holmes, eyes still spooked, mouth moving as he seemed to consider the name. “Look at it this way, if you can manage to call me that, you’ve beat Sherlock. He keeps forgetting my name.”

The humor helped Holmes through. He smiled, and said, primly but mischievously. “Greg, then.” Then, hesitant, ”And I suppose that means I’m ‘Mycroft.’” Then, silence floating, he reconsidered and said, “No. You already call me ‘Mycroft.’ I suppose…” he ducked his head, and mumbled, “I suppose, then, it’s ‘Mike.’”

“Nickname?”

“Family name. Mummy can never remember I changed over at fifteen.”

Friends, Lestrade thought. Friends and family. And Holmes-Mycroft—no, Mike, had planned an entire second career for him, just to avoid losing him…

Holmes was gay.

Part of him shivered. It had been a long time since Lestrade had questioned his alignment. Now seemed ridiculously old to even think about it.

So…maybe he’d think about that later.

For now…

He smiled, and cautiously, lovingly, clapped Holmes—Mike—on the shoulder.

“Friends, Mike.”

The other man’s face was still smooth as a lotus pond at morning, before the wind rose. But his eyes shone. “As you wish…Greg.”

They paused, both still—then turned as one, and walked through the double-doors of the Stranger’s Room together.

Tomorrow rolled out ahead of them, filled with possibilities.


End file.
